


Wolfsong

by TwinEnigma



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Original, Based on a Role Playing Group, Gen, Kagura dance, Ninja, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, magic ninja, original ninja clan, related to an RP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinEnigma/pseuds/TwinEnigma
Summary: Tarry not on the mountain road, for wolves linger.The Soushou clan celebrates their gods.





	Wolfsong

Reins click against the withers of the cart horses, causing them to whinny, as a practiced hand guides them off to the side of the road.  Their handler, an older merchant, dressed in a heavy travelling cloak, descends from the cart, reins in hand, and goes to reassure the horses.  His eyes, however, linger on the trade road ahead and the sloping path it takes into the mountains.  
  
A youth, head shaved and eyes full with incomprehension, leaps down from the cart and joins the man.  “Why have we stopped, Master?” he asks.  
  
The older man’s eyes drift to the mountains: “Wolves.  We will go no further until daybreak.”  
  
“I haven’t heard anything, Master,” the youth says, frowning.  
  
The man shakes his head.  “You will, soon enough,” he pauses and waves the boy to his side.  “Stay close to the fire and do not wander, especially on this night of all nights.  This land belongs to the wolves and their kin.  I mean it, boy!”  
  
The youth sighs in the manner of one unconvinced, but follows his master all the same.  
  
Then, a long, baying howl breaks the night air.  It echoes through the mountains, seemingly everywhere at once.  
  
“Yes, Master,” the youth says, shaking and chastened.  
  


* * *

  
  
Far from the roads of men, deep within the forests, there is the distant burning light of a bonfire.  
  
In the firelight and the beating of drums, there is movement.  Rice paper shimenawa and silk banners tremble in the evening wind.  Chants, first sung with a delicate, reverent harmony crescendo into fervent cries and yips that are almost dissonant in their intensity.  Fur and cloth, bone and steel circle endlessly around the raging flames of the bonfire borne by dancers, their faces masked in clay and leather.  Sandals and bare feet alike slap the earth.    
  
Those that do not dance or drum wait with solemn reverence, a tide of men and women and children, their faces painted in streaks of red ochre.  They are a lean and hard people, the Soushou; their hands are calloused from the toil of their livelihoods, be they in the fields or paddies, the stone or trees, and their hearts are hardened by constant conflict.  Above them, beyond the red torii, their shrine sits at the base of the mountains, dark and silent in the night.  It is a shrine to the local gods that rule these mountains, Jinsoku Kouga-ou and his wife, Niji no Ayame.   
  
The chanting and drumming reaches new heights and now the dancers are howling, crying out to the night as they flash knives of bone and steel and shake their fur-covered heads, clay ears and bronze charms clattering together.  
  
Then, from the darkness, there comes a long, baying howl, and then another, and another, until the cries fill the mountains.  
  
Silence descends, drums and dancers and people falling into a sudden, eerie stillness.  All eyes turn now to the shrine, where a light now grows.  
  
Brighter and brighter still it becomes, until, at last, the light is split like a reflection of the moon on water and a figure appears.  He is handsome, eerily so, and his eyes are a radiant blue, the brightness of which is a shocking contrast to the dark, ancient armor he wears and the dark topknot that graces his head.  He smiles and it is all fangs, his image once again rippling and ephemeral: he is at once both wolf and man, a titanic force of wild nature and a demonstration of unbearably contained power.  He is both and he is neither.  His very presence overwhelms and it takes a moment before anyone registers the arrival of the others: presences that fill the shadows of the trees and the stones with the undeniable heaviness of the other world.  They are the sacred ancestors, the willing sacrifices to the outer darkness, and they sing in an unyielding chorus for the living, wreathed in the skins of wolves.  
  
The wolf god descends, leaping over the heads of the dancers, over the reaching flames of the bonfire, and begins to dance alone, a strange and graceful dance that is neither human nor animal.  At his breast, the sacred _Sosei_ _no_ _Tama_ , holy relic of the shrine, flashes in the firelight.  To it and him, the dead are drawn, prowling at the edge of the treeline as he leaps and whirls.  
  
He calls to them, then, the wolf god; the howl that rises up from his throat shakes the trees, momentarily stilling the calls of the dead, and sends shivers down the spines of all those present.    Even the fire curls in on itself, embers scattering in the wind, and then it blossoms into new life, reaching for heaven itself.  
  
They bow to him, heads low to the ground as they present their offerings: rice and incense for the dead, raw deer or boar meat for the wolf god.  And though they can feel the spirits of their honored dead moving and hear the scrape of claws and bone on the bowls, none dare raise their eyes from the earth.  To do so would be to risk inviting the dead to stay in the realm of the living and, by far a more terrifying concept, to bring down the wrath of the wolf god himself.  
  
The low rattle of beads clacking together fills the silence; it is the signal for them to raise their heads and they do so without hesitation.  Above his head, the wolf god holds an ancient _gunbai_ war-fan, their clan _mon_ on the lacquered surface and a rosary of old jade beads trailing from its handle.  It is the _Niwatokobou_ , the symbol of their clan’s history, and he continues to shake it, shooing the ghosts away with each rattling pass of the fan.  
  
“The wolf god, Jinsoku Kouga-ou, he who brings down the thunder, sits at the right hand of heaven.  Honor be to the wolf god.  May he sit in heaven always,” the people say, bowing their heads to the earth, once, twice, and then a third time.  
  
From the shadows of the shrine, a woman in white appears.  Her head is covered in a white wolf’s pelt and when she finally comes to stand at the wolf god’s side, she reaches for the sky with her hands pressed together.  She pulls them apart and a shimmering silk cloth the color of rainbows fills the emptiness.  This, the sacred _Meimei Nijigaitou_ , she draws around herself and then she places it over the shoulders of the wolf god.  
  
“Honor be to Niji no Ayame, Queen of the Mountains, she who draws down the sky.  May she sit in heaven always,” the people chant, again bowing their heads.  
  
The two gods then hold hands and step forward, into the fire.  It dances up, higher and higher, forming into spiraling stairs, and the gods ascend them.  As they do so, the stairs fade into nothingness and then, too, the gods vanish.  
  
A stillness follows.  
  
The people then rise to their feet and, as one, bow to the shrine.  Each leaves their offerings before the shrine and turns away to join the start of joyous festivities closer to the heart of their home.  They will drink and eat and sing the rest of the night away.  
  
Only the dancers remain.  They return to the shrine, now full of “ghosts” dressed in ancient armor and wolf pelts, masks of clay and wood covering their faces, and where their gods, still dressed in their holy raiment wait.  It is here that all the trappings of the kagura dance are stripped away to reveal their kinsmen.   Each one has played their traditional role in this dance to honor the gods and so too must now put the dressings of that role to rest until the next festival.  For the majority of them, this is easy enough: the masks, ancient armor and pelts are returned to their storage chests and they re-dress in simple yukata for the festival.  
  
For the two who play the role of Jinsoku Kouga-ou and Niji no Ayame, the head of the clan and his wife, there is still one more ceremony they must complete.  They must return the three sacred artifacts of the clan to the head priest: it is he who will bring them to their proper places, safe within the deepest, most sacred part of the shrine, for it is only he who may enter that place.  It is only then, when their holiest of relics have been returned, that they will rejoin their clan and raise their cups in celebration.  
  
This night, there is peace in the mountains.  
  


* * *

  
  
At daybreak, the merchant and his subordinate leave offerings at a small shrine to the wolf gods.  And yet, still they do not tarry long on the mountain road.  
  
Years later, the youth, now an old monk, still hears the song of wolves in his sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> A short piece done for an RP group I'm in on deviantart. I run the Soushou clan, a clan of sneaky sneakers who specialize in information gathering, spying and murder, casually adopt people and go around terrifying everyone just by existing.
> 
> So this is set in the Warring States Era of the RP, and the Soushou of this time basically rule the mountain territories in their country and much of the surrounding land on the other side of the mountains. Their gods, naturally, are mountain gods and I've designed them based on an aggregate of multiple myths and fairy tales to fit the setting.
> 
> What's going on is a kagura dance, specifically a variant of a kind of kagura typically performed by miko. In this case, the primary dancers are "miko" and the family members playing the gods and ghosts are fulfilling a part of that function. As to the "magic" performed during the dance, the explanation is... they are ninja. I've done my best to also properly set the environment (such as maintaining the Shinto-style of shrine functionality).
> 
> Jinsoku Kouga-ou is also visually a pun - he is modelled on Kouga from Inuyasha; the "Jinsoku" part of his name refers to his speed. Likewise, Niji no Ayame, is based on Ayame from the Inuyasha anime. 
> 
> The artifacts also contain a bit of a Harry Potter reference: the Sosei no Tama is the Resurrection Stone, the Niwatokobou is the Elder Wand, the Meimei Nijigaitou is the Invisibility Cloak. This is because there are about a _million_ Harry Potter references with the Soushou clan, which I'd put in there initially as a gag and then, when at the time there were some issues with the group, just to see how many references I could get away with. (It turns out _a lot_. XD )


End file.
